Current practice for patients in a healthcare facility involves having multiple unrelated treatment, maintenance and/or monitoring devices that are attached to the patient. These include intravenous fluids and drugs, drainage catheters, suction catheters, leg compression stockings and vital sign monitoring devices. Such devices often create a hazard for the patient both directly and indirectly. The myriad of devices may become entangled and inadvertently removed if not adequately accounted for by the patient or caregiver. This may require an invasive intervention, including surgery, in order to replace the removed device.
The number of devices generally associated with the patient require the patient to have the physical and mental ability to manage organizing or carrying the devices to ambulate even as far as the bathroom. Since patients are debilitated by the nature of their illness and medications, two staff persons are frequently required to help the patient move even short distances. One staff member must assist the patient, providing physical support, while the other manages the attached devices. The patients thus do not get out of bed and ambulate as often since the staff of the typical health facility is not able to provide this kind of support readily to all of the patients at all times.
The resulting immobility increases the patient's risk for deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolus and pneumonia. Additionally, mobility improves gut motility and decreases the time a patient must wait before obtaining enteral nutrition and ultimately discharge from the healthcare facility. Patients that require prolonged hospital stays or admission to skilled-nursing facilities for non-medical indications related to mobility and personnel support may be able to be discharged home sooner with a device that provides the same type of care. The cost to the healthcare system may be reduced by decreasing the stays in expensive healthcare facilities and decreasing complications that are costly both in patient morbidity and monetary value.
The patient-care staff is also at risk for injury, as they must provide physical support to the debilitated patient. Back injuries are frequent in healthcare staff as a result of the physical nature of assistance provided. Allowing the patient to rely on an ambulatory assist device will help the patient-care staff as well by keeping them out of harm's way.
Current poles that provide an intravenous (“IV”) fluid and/or liquid medication delivery source are often times taken with patients when the patient moves around, such as when a patient walks in a hospital hallway. The patient typically places at least one hand on the IV pole to move the IV pole while walking. However, typical IV poles are approximately 6 to 7 feet tall, and are often unstable for providing weight support to a patient, particularly when one or more substantially full IV bags are positioned near the top of the pole. As a result, a patient is at risk of further injury by falling if the IV pole tips and/or falls over. In addition, in order to prevent tipping, conventional IV poles have widely spread wheels, which require a large amount of floor space. IV poles are completely unable to manage uneven terrain as is found outside the confines of the patient care facility, and as may be found at home or in the field for disasters or military operations.
In addition to being relatively unstable, current IV poles do not provide for the additional needs of a patient that is moving about. For example, IV poles do not include an oxygen source for assisting the patient with breathing. Current IV poles also do not include various pumps or suction devices that may be necessary for continuous operation to provide proper medical treatment to the patient. In addition, vitals monitoring equipment and communication devices are typically not present on a standard IV pole. Furthermore, even if an IV pole is adapted to include a monitoring device or pump, the IV pole tends to become even more unstable because the resulting added weight of the device typically is positioned relatively high along the pole.
In connection with patients that require assistance walking, various “walker” devices are available. A typical walker includes handrails interconnected to a stable base. However, because use of a walker usually requires both hands of the patient, a patient is typically unable to take an IV pole with them when using a walker.
A further difficulty exists when a patient needs to be moved from one room to another while in their bed. If the patient requires oxygen, an oxygen bottle must be provided, and is typically placed on the bed while moving the bed. This can create difficulties depending upon the size of the bed and the patient. Additionally, portable suction and vitals monitoring are not readily available for every patient. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an apparatus that includes oxygen and other physiological support adjacent to the bed, wherein the apparatus can be attached to the bed while moving the bed. Such an apparatus would therefore also be advantageous to overcome the difficulty of maintaining monitoring equipment and/or IV fluids adjacent to the patient while moving the patient's bed. The efficiency of the staff will benefit since only a single staff member will be required to move a patient since a second staff member is not required to push the IV pole and attachments. This also prevents the need for the staff member to move the patient to a wheelchair for transfer as is currently often done in order for a single staff member to manage the transfer. Eliminating this move prevents an opportunity for a patient fall resulting in injury with only a single staff member assisting.
Patient care devices and services such as suction and oxygen are not built in to the facilities of several countries and regions. This is also true in field situations of military conflict or civilian disaster. Patients may be far from a medical facility or in the hallway of a medical facility not equipped with patient support equipment/services.
Yet a further difficulty exists in maintaining electrical power to electronic devices such as monitoring equipment, suction pumps and/or injection pumps while the patient is walking with an IV pole or walker, or while the patient is being moved in their bed or while the patient is not located next to an electrical outlet. This may occur in: 1) the operating room while needing to adjust the bed height or keep the pumps charged during a long procedure, 2) during a disaster when patients may be stationed in hallways or temporary areas, 3) during military conflict or civilian situations that require creation of field hospitals with limited generator availability, and 4) in countries or regions that do not have consistent access to power. Accordingly, an apparatus that maintains electrical power to these devices would be advantageous, as would an apparatus that provides power in case of an electrical outage or blackout.